Birthday Blog: My Fav Costumes of 2003-2005

This post is dedicated to my fav/notable/memorable costume moments of 2003-2005!

I did a lot of costumes in 2003. More than any other year to date. But that’s because a lot of them weren’t made – they were “piece mealed” together out of stuff I bought. (I don’t do a lot of that anymore.)
2004 was a transitional year. I started moving around from doing anime costumes – in fact, I very nearly stopped cold turkey. I started stretching out into other movies, Star Wars, etc – I realized there was so much more out there, and I also just kinda started to fade out of my interest in anime.

Anyway, let’s get started, shall we?

January 1, 2003 – EOWYN SNEAK PEEK!
So obviously the bulk of work on this costume was actually done in 2002 – but mom and I slapped it together in under a week for me to wear to a Tolkien birthday party.


There’s an infamous story about this costume that I’ll tell later on.

January 5, 2003 – WHEN I WAS PLANNING MY QUIDDITCH UNIFORM
See how early I started planning this… and how far out it got pushed… this was a freaking SAGA.

January 23, 2003 – BELLDANDY WIG
These used to be the only kind of progress pics I’d take, but I started getting better about it later in this year – I would start taking pics of my finished costumes as a sneak peek (and to make sure I put them on fully before a con), and then later on I also started doing a pic of me wearing the partially finished costume, once it got looking like an actual costume.

February 13, 2003 – WHEN I THOUGHT ABOUT BEING ARAGORN
2003 marks the only time I’ve seriously thought about doing cross-play. Like not a femme version, I just straight-up wanted to be Aragorn and I was trying to figure out how to do stubble. I even bought a leather jacket to try to mod! Later in the year I was going to Jack Sparrow, too, and bought a wig that went nowhere.
I’m grateful neither got off the ground because I do not think I would have looked convincing, at all.

February 18, 2003 – WHEN I WAS STUCK WITH ONE PAIR OF PANTS
My grandparents, Mema and Daddy Bob, took me to Katsucon this year. My first time going. They mostly hung out in the hotel room while I did con stuff though they both came downstairs and took pics for me and people-watched in the lobby. I think they enjoyed it.


That is, until we got snowed in. Over saturday night into sunday, the North American Blizzard of 2003 blew in and we were stranded in DC for 2 extra days. Sunday morning we were thinking it wasn’t terrible yet, I packed up my costumes — and pretty much all my regular clothes — into my box to ship back home, and sent it down to the hotel’s shipping department for FedEx. We were about to leave for the airport when we discovered it was all shut down. So my grandparents just checked us right back into our room… we figured we’d be out the next day so I didn’t worry about my clothes. And when realized we weren’t getting out THAT day either, I couldn’t get my box back (can’t remember if it was due to fedex actually having already got it or there was just no staff in the shipping department to get it for me). So by the time we finally went to the airport tuesday I was feeling pretty grungey. I’d bought a new shirt in the gift store, and I did have clean underwear and pajamas in my suitcase, at least, along with toothbrush and stuff, so it thankfully wasn’t TOO dire in that case.

(sunday morning in the snow)
We ended up spending the night in the DC airport Tuesday night so we could get on a plan Wednesday morning. CRAZY!!!!!!!!
Also I should mention I begged my grandpa to walk to a nearby McDonald’s with me at the height of the snowstorm on Monday. I was so sick of hotel food — what they had left, that is. So we hiked in huge snow drifts and got some McDonald’s. LMAO.

Costume-wise, I took 5 new costumes to Katsucon, which at the time was a record for me. I’d done Belldandy — which I was supposed to make for Catherine the year before, but she didn’t go to Otakon, so I ended up making it for myself since I’d already studied it (she’s still salty). I did Chun-Li, Amalthea, and white uniform Utena, as well as updating my old Sailor Jupiter to Sailor Star Jupiter. And I got to be in my first skit with some other Sailor Moon cosplayers I’d met up with!


And, personally, Belldandy was the first time I really felt put-together and that I’d really done well on a costume. Like it didn’t feel like it had parts of it scrapped together, this was the first time I thought, I actually really look professional. (Except for the 50 bobbie pins in the wig holding it in place.)

March 6, 2003 – INTEGRA HELLSING PROGRESS
There’s actually two posts on March 6 about progress — the Integra one above and the Yuffie one here. Integra was pretty much done by that point – it was all stuff bought on ebay and altered so there wasn’t a lot of work to be done. I think I ended up adding the jacket and doing a few more little things.
Yuffie was more of the same, but this was a true “progress” photo – just showing everything I’d gotten in at that point, the wig, the shorts, shoes, socks, and the sweater was just tucked up until I could alter it.

March 23, 2003 – WHEN I COULDN’T GO TO NIMBUS
I REALLY wanted to go to the Nimbus 2003 Harry Potter con. I’d been asked to involved someway… I can’t remember how, but I remember getting an email a few months before inviting me to help out. And I just wasn’t able to, I already had too many cons on lock-down for the year and couldn’t swing an extra trip, especially since it was so close to one we’d already planned/paid for.

April 14, 2003 – WHEN WE DID AN AMIDALA PHOTOSHOOT
We took my Amidala costume from the year before out to the grotto to take pics – the first time we did costume pics here. I still really like some of these.


One thing the photoshoot pics DON’T show is that Kevin was also there, wearing a cape and carrying a lightsaber.

He was my Jedi Escort for the day.

May 23, 2003 – WHEN I POSTED SOME PROGRESS
I’m not really sharing this one for the progress pics – except to say, yay, I’m getting better at taking these! But in spring of 2003, cosplay.com launched a blog service on their site! So if you were a member, you had a little blog space. So I switched to using that, because at that time, cos.com was HOPPING. It was a great community and it seemed to make sense to post all of my costume updates over there. Sometimes I’d double up on them and also post them on my cosplay livejournal, but mostly I focused on the cos.com blog, and I got pretty good at updating it with my progress even if most of them were text updates.
In August of 2003, cos.com took the blogs down to fix a few things. And….. they never came back, ever. So I lost all of my costume updates for a good chunk of 2003. I still have the pics, thankfully, and some of the doubled-up posts that were on my livejournal, but I’ll probably never get over the loss of those posts.

June 9, 2003 – A-KON 2003 PICS!
After going to Animazement the previous two years, we decided to try something new… Ash and I (along with my dad) went to Dallas for Project A-Kon. And we had a good time despite the fact that it had to be 90 degrees in the basement of that hotel. And we wore some hot costumes.


We entered the costume contest together for the first time, as Belldandy and Skuld, with my new angel wings, and we actually won 2nd place overall! Our trophy broke on the way back, though. Still have it somewhere.

July 14, 2003 – ANIME EXPO 2003 RECAP!
Not many posts in between thanks to the cos.com blog disaster, so the next notable thing was our one trip to Anime Expo. This was another we wrangled to be a family trip – my family and Ash’s family all flew out to Anaheim, stayed at the Marriott by the convention center, we did a few touristy things the first day and a half and then ash and I did the con while the parents went off and did their own thing. And for whatever reason somebody talked us out of going to Disneyland and we went to Universal instead. WTF.


But I did meet Storm.
Ash and I barely took any photos. We mostly just wandered around the massive dealer’s room all day, and people-watched outside. We entered the costume contest as Morrigan and BBHood from Darkstalkers – something we had to sign up for months in advance and by the time it came to building the actual costumes, we weren’t all that hot on them anymore, but had to push forward.

I messed up my Morrigan leotard at the last minute and had to run out and by another one just a couple of days before we left for the con.
But my fav part of the con was our room, which was in the Marriott near the con center, and Ash and I’s room was in the back part of the hotel which only had 3 or so floors (the parents’ rooms were in the tower up front). We had balcony that overlooked the pool area so every morning I’d go out there and have my breakfasty snack and enjoy the weather and looking out at the pool. We also took advantage of the viewpoint by putting stupid signs on our balcony.

I also got my foot stuck in the elevator, and Ash got sick.

August 23, 2003> – BACK HERE
Back to your regularly scheduled costume posting at my regular blog, while “cos.com blogs are down for a bit” (AKA forever)

September 2, 2003 – DRAGONCON 2003 PICS!
Our second Dragon Con and this time we dragged Cat along with us.



We met James Marsters, we went to Evening in Bree, we went to PANELS, we walked in the parade, and we entered the masquerade together (that couple of years it was held over in a separate auditorium… that was weird.)
I did my second Padme costume – Loyalist Committee and I had to have an extra 2 yards of the burnout velvet overnighted to me to finish it in time (“You know that’s going to be really expensive right?” said the apprehensive customer service girl when we called to order it…). Also did Teela, finally finished Susan Sto Helit I’d started on the year before, and we did a quck simple Powerpuff Girl group for the parade. And I took a bunch of other costumes too, all shipped to Atlanta.
Loyalist Padme was incredibly uncomfortable but I suffered through it twice over the weekend.

So Monday I wore Eowyn at Dragon Con. We had to check out that morning, check our baggage and then our flight was later than evening. I put on Eowyn and wore it as we went through all that, and I just carried a bag with a change of clothes so I could change in the public restroom before we had to go. Well, when I went to do that, the girls came in the bathroom with me, and I thought they knew I needed help getting out of the vest because it doesn’t stretch – I basically have to dislocate my shoulder to get in and out of it. So I’m in a stall, take my wig off, put it in my bag, go to start taking the vest off, and called for some help…. crickets. They’d left! I should have just gone back out but I already had it half over my head and couldn’t get it back down. I had to just wiggle and shift and tug for several minutes before I finally got free.


So yeah my friends abandoned me!!!

October 15, 2003 – MORE SCHEDULING
One of those “here’s the cons I’m going to” posts, with the added bonus of notes about the updates I did my Loyalist Committee Padme and one of the first local Star Wars events I did (Nightmarez). I had just become a Rebel Legion member back in September, and even though that wasn’t an RL event (it was fanforce), that was the first time I’d done a “troop.”
Also notes about my ill-fated Quidditch sweater/costume. But I have a whole post about that drama I posted years later, so I’ll save the drama for that.

November 8, 2003 – WHEN I HUNTED FOR SDCC HOTELS
First mention of us ACTUALLY going to San Diego Comic Con, when I started to search for hotels. And I’d completely forgotten about the hotel reservation debacle with AX a few months before (thankfully straightened out WAY before we got there).
Also I have never, ever been a fan of crowding a bunch of people into a hotel room or staying with people I barely know. I brought it up here in this post, but have always really just needed to have my own space – and that goes back this far. Even more so now that I’m old lady. I ain’t staying in a hotel room with 10 other strange teenagers. *shakes cane*

November 11, 2003 – WHEN I MADE A COSTUME CLOSET
My costume collection got too large for my closet so my parents let me convert our 1/2 bath into a storage space. Put down a board as a counter over the sink and stored breakables there and a tension rod across the back to hang everything, and then i had some more storage bins on the floor.
Unfortunately I don’t have a photo of it where it was a clean. I did at one point, but it’s lost. All I have is a messy photo from 2004:

November 24, 2003 – WHEN WE TOOK YUFFIE PHOTOS
Went and took some Yuffie photos in the next door field. I miss this field!

December 20, 2003 – ARWEN PICS!
I rushed through December trying to finish my original Arwen dress to wear to the midnight show of ROTK. Only for us to get to the theater so late everyone was already seated and we had to sit in the front row (only seats left), and nobody really got to see my costume and didn’t get to take any pics. So I had to take some when we got home.


What you DON’T see in these photos…. my grandma had found this statue of a peeing dog. She thought it looked like Indy and bought it and gave it to me. I put it right next to the tree because I thought it was hilarious. And then forgot about it and ended up with a peeing dog statue in the background of every single Arwen photo I had. I ended up just drawing a black box over the dog and putting “Arwen” in the black box like a title for years LOL and finally got him properly ‘shopped out a couple of years ago.

2003 COSTUME TALLY: 23 new for me. I think. Helped Ash with 4 I think? And Cath with one.

January 1, 2004 – SITE UPDATED
I’ll talk a little bit more about my costume site when I get to my “Fav Designs” post in a few days, but this one I wanted to share because it was the first time I felt like a “serious” costume page and not just some little thrown together mini-site.


For the first few years, we were a “cosplay group” and my costume site’s name was Lazy Eternity. It eventually became “A Night at the Opera” and when I moved to wordpress in 2010, the costume site just became my main site.

January 31, 2004 – WHEN I COUGHED UP A LUNG
Katsucon 2004 – I only made 2 new costumes, one was super simple. That was because I was going to Paris/London right afterwards. And I was sick the entire leadup to Katsucon too – bruised a rib I was coughing so much.

February 16, 2004 – KATSUCON 2004 PICS!
Katsucon 2004 was a weird little con. It was just me and mom for the weekend. I rewore some old stuff, including Asuka and got lots of great Evangelion group pics. My new manga Belldandy, and my new Tohru. Rewore Morrigan for the first and only time. And got to be Urd in a huge, awesome Ah! My Goddess group.

March 20, 2004 – ARWEN PHOTOSHOOT!
One of my all time favourite photoshoots.

March 26, 2004 – BLOOD
So I’d gotten to where I was doing more local Star Wars stuff, and my Padme lake dress and loyalist committee dress were NOT easy to wear. I wanted something more comfortable but still recognizable, and my mom is actually the one who kept saying I should do battle Padme. I wasn’t all that into it, until I realized I could do the ripped version and do the fake blood/scratches on the back. And THEN I was like yeah ok that sounds fun.

March 27, 2004 – WHEN I WENT TO MIDSOUTHCON WITH CAT
Made a return to MidSouthCon after taking a year off – wore battle Padme most of the day (with my hair just in a looped bun, hadn’t made a hairpiece yet), and then switched to my Lake dress for that evening and actually won Best Sci-Fi costume in the masquerade – woot.


Also this was the first time I ever really met/hung out with any of the local 501st folks.

April 4, 2004 – WHEN MTAC WAS OVER
Dad, Kevin and I went up to Nashville for MTAC. This was Kevin’s first full con experience, and I put together a little Link costume for him! He LOVED it. And he got to be in the costume contest, too. Speaking of which, I won Best Master Craftsmenship in the costume contest and pretty much doomed myself to only entering as a master in every costume contest from here on out LOL.


I always liked this location because it was right across the street from the Parthenon which made for some nice photos, but they never had it there again.

April 28, 2004 – AKON PANELIST
I got confirmation that I’d be on 1 or 2 panels at A-Kon – my first time doing that at a con!

May 3, 2004 – ANNA VALERIOUS
When you fall in love with a costume without seeing the movie first.

May 12, 2004 – HILD PROGRESS PICS
I wasn’t going to make anything new for A-Kon but then I decided I had to be Hild.

June 9, 2004 – A-KON 2004 PICS!
This con was kinda weird, because it was just me and dad, and dad went off to a music festival during the day while I did the con by myself. It started off going to see the Prisoner of Azkaban midnight show at a nearby theater, and I got to meet Priscellie!! So that was fun. Then the rest of the weekend I mostly just wandered around by myself which was weird and I decided I didn’t really ever want to do that again.


Hild went over well though; I ended up getting in 3 different magazines’ A-Kon coverage from it?!
Other than Hild I wore a bunch of really old costumes again to give them some more “screen time” so to speak.

June 20, 2004 – NASHVILLE FABRIC SHOPPING!
Mom and I actually drove 6 hours (3 there and 3 back) just to go shopping at a Joann Fabrics, LMAO. We didn’t have any in Memphis (just Hancocks…RIP) and we heard how great they were so we drove out to shop for fabric for upcoming projects. One thing I didn’t mention in the post is that they had this big bag of assorted buttons, like 200 different kinds of buttons and I bought it, and I still have a gazillion of those buttons and I still use them for different things to this day. Sometimes I paint them, break the loop off the back, use them as something else, etc.

June 25, 2004 – WHEN I DIDN’T WANT TO BE RUDE
This kind of stuff is why I really don’t participate in groups and stuff anymore. Took me a few years to learn to avoid the areas where drama happens.

July 19, 2004 – IMPERIAL OFFICER SNEAK PEEK!
Last bits and bobs of progress on my costumes for SDCC. I uploaded this Imperial Officer pic (which I was going to join the 501st with after SDCC!) to one of my cosplay sites as a progress photo and… it got deleted. To this day I still think a mod somewhere thought it was a nazi costume even though I clearly had it labeled Imperial Officer.

July 20, 2004 – WHEN OUR LUGGAGE GOT LOST
So as I’ve mentioned in a few Birthday posts already, San Diego Comic Con 2004 was the first time Ash or I traveled somewhere without an adult companion. Every other con not in our own city, we’d had a parent or grandparent or aunt go with us. So this was a big deal for us and KINDA SCARY and KINDA EXCITING all at the same time.
Well of course, as soon as we’re boarded, they come on and announce that there is an issue with the plane and we need to deboard and go back to the ticketing counter. Luckily it was a very small plane with no first class and Ash and I were in the very first row, so jumped up, grabbed our bags and RAN to the ticket counter. We ended up being 3rd in line somehow, but still WAY ahead of everybody else, had a line a mile long behind us. Thankfully they were able to move us over to other airlines without a problem and we actually got to San Diego around the same time we would have gotten there on our original flight.
But of course all that juggling meant our luggage did not make it to San Diego at the same time as us. And nobody at the airport was any help.
We ended up going on to the hotel – we stayed at the Omni which had JUST opened and it was their first SDCC – and everybody there was SO NICE. Like I think the entire staff of the hotel knew we were missing our luggage and would ask us for updates when they saw us in the halls or when we were coming and going.
The luggage finally showed up the next day and they sent it over to our hotel. WOO clean clothes!! (Thankfully the only costume piece I had in my luggage was my Dark Phoenix gloves – I’d shipped everything else and that all made it fine.)

July 22, 2004 – WHEN WE FINALLY GOT TO ENJOY SPRAN DIGGEDI
The afternoon we arrived we headed over to the San Diego zoo. Still wearing our clothees from the plane which meant Ash was in pants and burning up. But it was still neat. We got to the back of the park and were exhausted… I asked Ash if I could push her over and she pretend to be hurt and we get an employee to drive us back up front on a cart since “my friend is injured”, but she said no. Then we found out they had a skyliner sort of thing so we rode that back.


(Ash at the zoo getting kissed by a tiny camel)
Thursday we went to Balboa Park, had lunch, went to the art museum and just wandering around lunch. When we got done we could NOT find a taxi. We went in a store and asked if they could call a taxi, which they did. But we sat and waited and waited and waited. Saw lots of cops, no taxi. So I asked Ash if I could push her over and she pretend to be hurt and we get one of the cops to drive us back to the hotel since “my friend is injured”… but she said no. Then the taxi finally showed up.
That night was preview night and there was nothing else like it. We’d never seen that much geek stuff in one place before. We were both on the phones with our parents with our jaws hanging open, followed by periods of screaming about everything.

July 25, 2004 – WHEN WE MET CARRIE AND DOM
By the way, I had gotten my first laptop earlier in 2004 so now I was traveling with it, which meant I was updating from our hotel room. So lots more post than normal now.
So we heard that the cast of LOST was going to be doing a signing on Saturday morning, they were only handing out a handful of tickets at the door opening, so Ash and I made plans to get up and be at the con center and be ready to RUN.


(I was in Anna all morning)
Well guess what, just as we got to the con center, Ash FELL going up the stairs and bloodied up her elbow. We went over to security at the doors to ask if there was first aid anywhere around, because she needed a bandaid. The security guard let us in the con center, before the doors were actually open.
So we went in and hid in a bathroom until we heard the announcement the con was open, we RAN out of the bathroom, into the first doors we found, and somehow, luckily, we were RIGHT there at the booth where they were giving out the autograph tickets (we hadn’t planned that). And we got two of the last tickets.
So my “my friend is injured” plan finally worked.
Anyway, we got the autographs from all the lost folks, including Dominic which we were the most excited about because we were still on a LOTR high, and I know we also got Matthew Fox and Evangeline Lily. Can’t remember who else was there.
But we also got Carrie’s autograph that day, though since I wasn’t in a Star Wars costume I didn’t ask for a photo which makes me super sad now 🙁

Sorry I’m rambling about this trip… these are still stories we tell and laugh about to this day, it was such a fun trip despite the bumpy beginning.

August 1, 2004 – SDCC 2004 PICS FROM EBK!
Pics from Eurobeat King from SDCC. I was part of a LOTR group for the masquerade – I wore my Arwen costume as “Galadriel”


This was fun!
I also wore my new Dark Phoenix, new AOA Shadowcat (tho I ended up only wearing it for maybe 2 hours?), and my Anna Valerious of course. I also wore Hild again, and Teela, and She-Ra. I tried to get the SDCC exclusive She-Ra figure but never could… but I bought it on ebay later.

August 22, 2004 – A SEWING GET-TOGETHER
Mom and Ash’s mom decided to come with us to Dragon Con this year and they made costumes too! So we had big sewing get-togethers at our house to finish everything – we were working on 2 Hobbit costumes, 3 Pern costumes, my Hermione upgrade, my concept art Padme, my Ozma and Ash’s Patchwork Girl. So much going on!

September 7, 2004 – WHEN WE HAD A GREAT DCON
The moms coming to Dcon with us was so much fun. Ash and I would go do our own thing and then randomly run into the mums, in their Hobbit costumes, drinking hotel wine and laughing at stuff. I wore my original Arwen in the parade, Ash and I did Ozma and Patchwork Girl in the masquerade, and I won the Pern contest with my Lessa. This was a really fun year.

September 28, 2004 – WHEN WE PLANNED FOR C3
I forgot how much of a pain in the butt it was to get our Celebration tickets and hotel taken care of. Also the Omni was 100% NOT connected to the convention center unless you went through a parking garage, out a little door and then up another skywalk through a mall. It was a hike.

October 3, 2004 – LEIA PROGRESS
Time to finally make a “real” Leia costume.

November 3, 2004 – HALLOWEEN 2004 AND LEIA PICS!
Halloween 2004 was the best Halloween. We did some trooping, we went to a Halloween party at a gay bar, we ruined a Capture the Flag game, my parents’ and Ashs’ parents did LOTR costumes, and I finally did my first Leia costume.

November 21, 2004 – QUI-GON AND AMIDALA UPDATES
I just want to point out that I started our Celebration 3 costumes 6 months in advance. I’m pretty sure that’s a record that still stands.

2004 COSTUME TALLY: 15 new for me. Helped the moms with 4. Helped Ash with 1.

January 16, 2005 – MY NEW SERGER! AND QUI-GON UPDATES
Bought my serger.
Also, I don’t THINK I have a post about it… at least I couldn’t find one, but my current sewing machine was bought for me and Mom by my Mema in, I think, summer of 2001. When I moved out I took it with me and mom got a new one. It’s still my main machine.

March 7, 2005 – QUEEN AMIDALA PARADE PETALS
“Hey dad take some pictures of me while I’m dyeing these petals for my blog”


And I think it’s still the only picture I have of ME while working on costumes.

April 3, 2005 – MIDSOUTHCON 2005 PICS!
After solid months of work on my Amidala costume for Celebration, I actually had it done early enough to wear it to MidSouthCon first. ONLY TIME THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED.
We did some trooping for the ROTS toy release the night before, and then I spent Saturday at MidSouthCon in Leia during the day, then Amidala for the costume contest, and that night switched to Anna Valerious for partying.


A friend of mine at the con asked, “When are you doing slave Leia?” And I said never. (I’d change my mind in just a couple of months tho)

So proud of this costume. Won an award in the costume contest.
Then after the masquerade, I went and grabbed Anna out of my car (didn’t have a hotel room), and my friend Mel helped me change in the public restroom. I’d bought a black curly wig to wear with since I wouldn’t be able to curl my hair and it looked AWFUL but oh well. Then we went to dance and drink at the 501st party. We were having fun, and yeah we got a little drunk. We were actually drinking BEERS which neither of us usually do, but it was hot and the beers were free. Once they turned the lights off, we put glowsticks in our empty smirnoff ice bottles LOL.
The band that was playing was made of up 501st guys:

And funny thing about this picture is that it cuts off the drummer – who at that time I didn’t know, but I’d eventually marry the guy. And of course there’s the story about how he that that wig was my real hair.
Then all of a sudden, at the top of the stairs to the room, appeared Cat. Cat said she couldn’t come. She had to study. But there she was! In her Pajamas but she was here! We were so excited! But as soon as we got to her, it was apparent she was MAD. Our parents – both our parents – had been calling her asking if she knew where we were. We’d just dumped our bags (and phones) in a chair and not checked. And… we forgot that night was daylight savings. So we’d lost track of time to start with AND it was an hour later than we anticipated – it was like 4 in the morning IIRC. She had been sent to find us. So she dragged us home, and thus ended MidSouthCon 2005.

April 9, 2005 – QUEEN AMIDALA COSTUME PHOTOSHOOT!
Took Amidala out to Brooks for one of my fav photoshoots.

May 2, 2005 – STAR WARS CELEBRATION 3 PICS!!
Dad, Ash and I went up to Indianapolis for C3! So exciting! Unfortunately the weather was AWFUL. It snowed. And we spent one morning shuffling through a forever long line, in the freezing pouring rain, in full costume, trying to get IN the con center. ICK.
But my new Mara Jade worked well, it was super comfy. I wore Queen Amidala in the costume contest, and dad wore Qui-Gon. I really enjoyed being in matching costumes with dad! I wore Leia for the RL photoshoot (which as also outside in the pouring rain), and got some rain damage to my boots that is still there. Wore my Imp Officer, and my old lake dress, too.


But despite the bad weather and lines we still had fun. We saw George Lucas without a wait at all. On the last day they let us in the building early for the 501st photo (I’m a tiny dot in the very last row…) and I realized hey we finally have a chance to get into the C3 store! So Ash ran over with our badges and we were finally able to get our action figures, shirts, etc (and hey I happen to be wearing my C3 shirt with Anakin and Obi-Wan on it today…)

May 20, 2005 – WHEN LEIA WASN’T SUCH A GOOD IDEA FOR WORK
That time I nearly walked into a state audit at work in full Leia costume. Thankfully averted.

May 22, 2005 – REVENGE OF THE SITH EVENT PICS! AND PLANS
The week of Revenge of the Sith was crazy busy with trooping events, plus the midnight show of course.

May 29, 2005 – DISASTER!
Yuuko is a costume I don’t talk about a lot – at least, I don’t talk about the progress. There’s hardly any posts about it. And no photos, even though by now I’d gotten good at taken progress photos (now that I had a decent digital camera). That’s because it was a disaster from start to finish and I wanted to just throw it in the trash.

June 5, 2005 – A-KON 2005 PICS & SDCC PLANS!
A-Kon 2005 was my last year attending, and this year I really only went to take Kevin – I thought he’d love it and he did. (This was his second “full” con experience.) Mum went with us, too. I mostly just wandered around in costume while Kevin did what he wanted.
Yuuko, despite the disasters, actually turned out pretty good.


Other than it was mostly a “rewear old stuff” con for me – Belldandy, Rally Vincent, Sailor Jupiter, etc.
And I got my tattoo the week before and it looked great in my Mara Jade.

July 7, 2005 – UPDATES ON EVERYTHING, SLAVE LEIA PROGRESS
So, somewhere… there is a blog post where I said “the one costume I’ll never do is Slave Leia.”
Well then I decided I wanted to do ALL of Leia’s costumes so that was right out the door.

July 15, 2005 – HALLO FROM SDCC 2005! A FEW PICS
Our second trip to SDCC was so much fun. We went to a book release party for HP5 while we were there, I entered the masquerade in my Amidala, and I practically lived in the Leia bikini because it was so comfortable. Wore my new Arwen and loved it. And also my first time painting myself using Ben Nye (for Starfire), so the first of many “gross bathtub water” pics.

August 8, 2005 – BELLE, CINDERELLA, SNOW WHITE, REBEL LEIA PROGRESS!
For Dcon 2005 we did a big Disney group, mom and I made a Snow White, Cinderella and Belle for me, and Ash was Stitch. I was trying to get two other costumes done for me (Rebel Leia and Polychrome) but only got Rebel Leia done…

September 7, 2005 – DRAGONCON 2005 PICS!
This was THE best year. All four of us went. Saw Phantom of the Opera Thursday night. We had matching costumes. We all walked in the parade. We did our ridiculous disney skit. I lived in Slave Leia. We danced at evening in bree. I met Chase. Went to the 501st shoot as Starfire and still got in the garrison pic. Just the best.

September 11, 2005 – DISNEY PRINCESSES ONSTAGE – DRAGONCON 2005
So somewhere I do still have the actual video of our skit… but it’s not online anymore. It was ridiculous. But I do have these photos.

September 17, 2005 – MORE BELLE BALLGOWN PICS
Belle photoshoot!

September 26, 2005 – DRESSING A GALAXY
My birthday present to myself. It was awesome (still have it).

October 10, 2005 – WHEN WE WENT TO HOFEST
Like literally the only reason I wanted to go to this little con that was in a storefront in a strip mall and stayed in a creepy motel was to hang out with Chase again. After the con we went to see Serenity as a group and hung out at the mall.

November 9, 2005 – CEREMONIAL LEIA
I planned a different (original) costume for months for Halloween 2005… then realized a week before Halloween I hadn’t started a darn thing so I threw together a quick ceremonial Leia.

2005 COSTUME TALLY: 9 new for me. Helped dad with 1. Helped Ash with 2. 1 for Mel, 1 for Cat.

Next up we go into 2006!